With more than 30,000 Americans being killed annually by guns, it’s time to start thinking. Let’s put to rest the tired mantra that “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”
The truth is, “People with guns kill many more people.”
To fight domestic terror and protect the innocent and our children we need reasonable gun safety legislation and enforcement. Since our founders there has been an uneasy co-existence of gun rights for self-protection, and gun safety in public. Even in the old west, most towns required you to check your guns at the boundary. They knew that anarchy would otherwise reign.
Second Amendment interpretation by the conservative Supreme Court in 2008 said you have a right to a handgun in your home for self-protection, but that governments have a right and responsibility to regulate guns in public. That is just and reasonable!
Some gun lobby extremists say they don’t even want the government to stop criminals and foreign terrorists from getting guns at gun shows. And they say they need weapons of war to protect against our own democratically elected government. That is paranoid madness and in opposition to our democracy.
Yes, you have the right to a handgun at home for self-protection, but you don’t necessarily have the right to an assault weapon or to threaten others' right to “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” in public places. Enough!
David Vail
Guilford